Hot Girl Summer

Singapore is so hot right now, it’s all the subreddit can talk about. After spending an hour in my unventilated and poorly air-conditioned music class, basically being baked in there, I was feeling too dizzy and booked a quick cab back home. It had been a while since I had a chatty driver. “So hot eh? Walao! After some time gonna crack ah? Super tsunami .. sighs.. Anyway,  you got the toto last time?”Quite impressive, he switched from global warming and climate change to buying lottery tickets with a 12 million dollar prize, within a minute. At his age, he has his priorities straight, even telling me that I should get the SGD40 ones atleast. The taxi drivers that talk always leave me with some bits of advice, wishing me a good day ahead. I appreciate its never questions beyond where I am from, unlike back home where if its a chatty taxi driver - oh boy. Either you have to go straight to high alert (as a woman, but even as a man) or you have to lower their expectations very fast. I know their intentions might be honest, but the risk is too high. Another similar category are ladies from the beauty parlour. I look much much more like my father than my mother so as a kid when I accompanied her to any parlour, it was a guaranteed question on whether we are “really” related. The ladies in Singapore couldn’t care less if I was part-alien when they rip my soul off, and somehow that’s better.

While I am quite grateful for everything I have, I’ve recently given myself the room to feel bad as well. I realised forcing my brain to always feel grateful for what I have and never mourn what I lost or missed out on, or to never feel sad for not putting my best because I am rushing myself to the next thing on my to-do list, was draining. I can’t constantly force myself to be happy, to the point of treating “relax on my home trip” as another goal to achieve which obviously led to the opposite result. I know this sounds like Inside Out 2, where Joy keeps sending bad memories to the back of Riley’s head. Anyway, yes the local tendency to keep complaining (which I initially found very surprising for people living in an amazing place, full disclosure) seems to have some merit in it, you can't fix everything with a pretty matcha latte and call it a day.

In lighter topics, I have been trying to get back into meal prepping and working out. Sadly, I seem to have lost all my culinary skills, I couldn’t eat what I cooked and it even gave me food poisoning at first. Inevitably, I would be starving by 8PM when I finish my workout class and by gorging the closest dinner I could find, would reverse any benefits of eating healthy and exercising. Is anyone else stuck in this loop? Or is my planning system breaking down? Or is it just .. age? Was my 24 year old self quicker to adapt than I am now? Actually, I don’t want to know the answer to that. To add on, the gym chain I frequent has come up with themes of the week i.e, they focus on a certain muscle group throughout their workout classes. Which means, I am killing my arms four times in one week. I can hear my triceps whimper as my instructor says “okay now back to plank” yet again.

The country is decked in flags, in red and white decor and there are National Day offers all around. There is a festive + summer vacation vibe going on, and catching fighter jets fly overhead in the beautiful sunny blue skies during NDP rehearsals is always a treat. It is very adorable to see Singaporean citizens cheer at the stunning fireworks display. I wonder if I will ever get to watch the Republic Day parade live at Kartavya Path.  My sister’s notification interrupts my daydream - “Have you ever faced any failures academically?” Yes sis, that’s what I was looking to chat about at 5:20PM on a Thursday. Don’t get me wrong, I am quite grateful for her too.